CAPE TOWN, Nov 28 (AFP) - At least 46 people were injured, five seriously, when a pipe bomb exploded in a pizzeria at a popular Cape Town beachfront on Sunday afternoon, police and rescue workers said.
There were some 79 pipe bomb attacks in Cape Town last year, followed by several more this year. In September however, police said attacks had tapered off and they believed their anti-violence campaign was working.
Police reportedly blame Muslim groups in the city for the bombings.
In the latest blast, the majority of those injured suffered cuts and bruises from flying glass and shrapnel. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the blast.
Police said they feared the bombing, which followed one earlier this month at a pub in the heart of Cape Town's gay clubland on Nov. 6, could signal the start of a fresh wave of violence in the city in the buildup to Christmas and New Year's - already peak season in the southern hemisphere summer.
Police spokesman Captain Neville Malila confirmed that the blast that ripped through St Elmo's pizzeria overlooking Camp's Bay beach on the Atlantic seaboard, was caused by a pipe bomb - a crude home-made device using metal piping packed with explosives.
Malila, spokesman for Operation Good Hope, a police campaign launched in January to curb such attacks, told the SAPA news agency the bomb was probably placed under a table.
He said police hoped the blast was "not the start of a new spate of bombings" ahead of the festive season. Hundreds of thousands of people are expected to flock to Cape Town's Waterfront tourist area on December 31 for a massive party to see in the year 2000.
After a massive pipe bomb exploded in Planet Hollywood restaurant at the Waterfront in August last year, tourism fell away dramatically but soon returned to normal levels.
